Riona (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rionaleonhart) wrote2010-07-27 04:06 pm
rionaleonhart) wrote2010-07-27 04:06 pm
Coming Back To Shoes...
On Sunday, I went to a recording of The Unbelievable Truth! The Unbelievable Truth, for those who are unfamiliar with it, is a Radio 4 panel game in which panellists must attempt to spot true facts in lectures composed largely of nonsense. The panel consisted of Tony Hawks, Arthur Smith, Henning Wehn and Graeme Garden. I have only just noticed that I have inexplicably referred to the last of these as 'Greene' throughout my notes. HIS NAME ISN'T 'GREENE' RIONA WHAT ARE YOU DOING.
Here are some of the things that were said!
Hawks was the first speaker, with a lecture on nudity.
Hawks: I have a compulsion for nudity. I'm a nudomaniac, if you like. In fact, I'm nude right now.
(Garden buzzes)
Garden: I just thought I'd make it more interesting for the listeners.
Mitchell: Well, of course we aim to create a general air of nudity with this programme, and I hope you're all mentally undressing us at home. ...by which I mean undressing us in your minds, not undressing us in a sort of crazy way.
Smith attempted to argue that Hawks was probably nude quite a lot of the time.
Smith: Most of us are naked in bed. Do you wear pyjamas, Tony?
Mitchell: So, no, Tony Hawks is not naked but is instead wearing pyjamas.
Later, after the revelation that someone designed rubber shoes in the mid-eighteenth century, which he thought would protect him from lightning but which instead exploded:
Smith: My shoes have never exploded.
Garden: Well, I think there have been some developments in the past two hundred and fifty years.
Smith: It's health and safety gone mad.
Mitchell: A man can't have half his leg blown off any more without the nanny state coming down.
Smith: (mimes having a shoe explode) AGH
Mitchell: You see, this is why we normally do these shows naked.
Wehn buzzed in in the middle of one of Hawks' truths.
Hawks: I'm not going to say the joke afterwards, now. It was really good, too.
Wehn: I'm sorry; I've ruined it for everyone.
Apparently, in France, the penalty for adultery was once being forced to chase a chicken through the streets naked.
Mitchell: I'd be useless at chasing a chicken. It's why I don't go in for adultery.
Wehn and Hawks formed an alliance and kept telling each other what was going to be true. It began when Garden buzzed in on Hawks' speech because nobody had spotted anything yet, and 'there must be some truths in there'.
Hawks: They're all coming up. Here's one: [truth!]
(Wehn buzzes)
Wehn: Well, he said that it was true.
Mitchell: I think Tony was going for a double bluff there, but your literal German mind has allowed you to avoid that pitfall.
Later in Hawks' speech:
Wehn: Give us a clue, Tony.
In Wehn's following speech, Tony protested that Wehn wasn't returning his kindness.
Wehn: Don't worry; I'll pay you back. This is true. In the town--
(Smith buzzes)
Smith: I knew he wouldn't lie.
Mitchell: Yes, three words in you have correctly identified a true fact, thus making the game much more efficient in a very German way. I like it.
During Wehn's second lecture, he and Hawks started waving to each other and giving thumbs-up signs before a truth.
Mitchell: There's all sorts of sign language going on between Henning and Tony, and I'd feel more comfortable if I thought it was entirely sexual.
Much later, in response to the fact that someone had dressed as a tree to fish:
Smith: Henning looks a bit like a tree.
Wehn: Get your rod out.
Hawks: Henning! You're being unfaithful! How dare you?
Wehn at one point said 'May that as it be'. Mitchell couldn't quite keep himself from correcting him, in a rather selfconscious but insistent way, to 'Be that as it may'.
After Wehn's lecture on shoes, in which he used the phrase 'coming back to shoes' a couple of times as a lead-in after a challenge, the phrase 'coming back to shoes' was adopted as an all-purpose segue to get the game back on track, regardless of the subject under discussion.
The first line of Wehn's shoe lecture, incidentally:
Wehn: Shoes were invented by Jesus.
(pause, then massive laughter)
Mitchell: If nobody buzzes now, we're going to get letters.
Later:
Wehn: Apples were invented by Jesus.
Later still:
Smith: Lord Byron was invented by Jesus.
Smith's first lecture was on cakes. He claimed that a specific baker once baked a cake in the shape of Chairman Mao, and that three drunks then broke in and ate it. Wehn buzzed in.
Wehn: I think the first part, the part about baking a cake in the shape of Chairman Mao, I think that definitely could have happened.
Mitchell: And, if the claim had been that he could have baked a cake in the shape of Chairman Mao, you would have got a point.
Garden: What about the second part, about the drunks eating it?
Mitchell: Yes, they ate it; it just didn't exist.
Later:
Smith: In 2007, British cooks used 180 eggs, 120 jars of jam and 220 pounds of sugar to make a life-sized Skoda cake.
(Hawks buzzes for this)
Mitchell: It's not true. What is true, however, is that in 2007 British cooks used 180 eggs, 125 jars of jam... (in response to Hawks standing up and making to leave) Look, I don't like the way Arthur plays the game either.
Smith also said before his final line 'look, I'm going to say right now that this isn't true, so don't buzz and just let me really go for the punchline'.
Mitchell: And at the end of that, Arthur, you managed to smuggle two truths past the rest of the panel, and, in one of the most unsporting rounds to date, one of those was the one you explicitly said wasn't true beforehand.
Smith: (making 'raising' gesture) I'm taking the game to a different level.
Hawks: Don't gesture up!
A challenged claim about Caravaggio turned out to be untrue.
Smith: Yeah, but he was a hell of a dude, Caravaggio.
Mitchell: I don't mean in any way to insult Caravaggio, or to question his status as a hell of a dude.
Hearing David Mitchell say 'a hell of a dude' is an entirely delightful experience.
Hawks claimed that the story of Pinnochio was based on an ancient Babylonian tale in which telling lies made the penis grow larger. Smith buzzed in.
Smith: I know from personal experience...
Mitchell explained that it was false.
Mitchell: Which is just as well, because I don't want to imagine Jeffrey Archer with a giant hard-on.
Hawks: And yet you are.
Smith: What was it Shakespeare said? 'Give me a man with a large nose and I shall hold him in my heart as I do thee, Cassio.'
Mitchell: I don't think they had calculators back then, did they?
During Wehn's lecture on apples, Wehn having previously given Hawks a not-very-sneaky thumbs up:
Wehn: Vikings brought barrels of apples on long journeys.
Hawks: (buzzes) That's definitely true.
Mitchell: It is true!
Wehn: Vikings brought barrels of apples on long journeys.
Mitchell: You've said that already.
Wehn: I'm getting back into my flow!
Mitchell: You can't complain about the way the game is run when you keep giving Tony the answers.
Wehn: Vikings brought barrels of apples on long journeys.
(Garden buzzes in)
Garden: Repetition. (This will make sense to you only if you're familiar with Radio 4's Just a Minute; if you are not, I can assure you that this joke is hilarious.)
Mitchell: Erm...
Smith: Oh, there was a definite hesitation there.
Mitchell: Yes, I think I'm going to give Graeme a point there as a punishment to Henning for slow play.
Hawks: Please don't try to get back into your flow.
Wehn: But before long they would have eaten all the apples, and--
Mitchell: Who would? I don't understand.
Garden buzzed in on something that was true but not on the list of truths to be included. Mitchell argued that the speaker wasn't asserting it.
Garden: Hmmm.
Audience: Hmmm.
Mitchell: (looks slightly alarmed) ...I'd better leave quickly after this.
Smith claimed that Lord Byron once rode a zebra onto the floor of the House of Lords. Wehn buzzed in on this. It turned out to be untrue.
Smith: Zebras are weak; their ankles snap the moment you mount them. That's the extent of my zebra-related knowledge.
Mitchell: It's greater than mine. I'd never have looked at a zebra and thought 'that is a weak-ankled animal'.
Smith: Well, you should get out more.
Mitchell: ...I probably should.
(Garden buzzes)
(Garden claims that Chris Tarrant is allergic to fish. Wehn buzzes in and insists that Tarrant gives off the air of being someone who won't touch fish. As it turns out, Tarrant is a keen fisher.)
Wehn: That's so weird, because every time I see him I think 'that's a man who won't go near fish'.
Mitchell: I know, it's impossible to imagine, isn't it?
Wehn: Plus there's the 'I Don't Eat Fish' T-shirt.
Smith: What was this thing you saw Chris Tarrant in?
Wehn: It was a personal video. You were in it, Arthur.
Mitchell: Well, what you have to remember is that, in these porn films that Chris Tarrant makes, he's acting. The character he plays doesn't like fish. Of course, Chris Tarrant is such a talented porn actor that it can be difficult to distinguish his role from the reality.
Smith: I was his fluffer.
Garden: What was he like to work with?
Smith: He didn't like fish.
Mitchell was unable to finish one of his post-game facts because members of the panel kept buzzing in in the middle and saying 'I THINK THAT'S TRUE'. The producer made him redo it at the end; Mitchell, wary, asked the panel to disconnect their buzzers and then cracked up three words in.
Mitchell: In Oblong, Illinois, it's illegal to make love whilst fishing on your wedding night, presumably to keep your hook from getting caught in your tackle. Which would ruin your fishing.
(beat)
Because of the pain in your penis.
Which brings us to the final scores!
Smith: (snorts) ...mneh mneh penis. Which brings us to the final scores!
Mitchell: And, on a non-sequitorial note, here are the scores. That joke concluded, here are the scores.
Finally, an out-of-context quote from the queue, just because:
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
valderys: I think David Mitchell's penis, metal or not, would presumably be classy.
Yes.
Here are some of the things that were said!
Hawks was the first speaker, with a lecture on nudity.
Hawks: I have a compulsion for nudity. I'm a nudomaniac, if you like. In fact, I'm nude right now.
(Garden buzzes)
Garden: I just thought I'd make it more interesting for the listeners.
Mitchell: Well, of course we aim to create a general air of nudity with this programme, and I hope you're all mentally undressing us at home. ...by which I mean undressing us in your minds, not undressing us in a sort of crazy way.
Smith attempted to argue that Hawks was probably nude quite a lot of the time.
Smith: Most of us are naked in bed. Do you wear pyjamas, Tony?
Mitchell: So, no, Tony Hawks is not naked but is instead wearing pyjamas.
Later, after the revelation that someone designed rubber shoes in the mid-eighteenth century, which he thought would protect him from lightning but which instead exploded:
Smith: My shoes have never exploded.
Garden: Well, I think there have been some developments in the past two hundred and fifty years.
Smith: It's health and safety gone mad.
Mitchell: A man can't have half his leg blown off any more without the nanny state coming down.
Smith: (mimes having a shoe explode) AGH
Mitchell: You see, this is why we normally do these shows naked.
Wehn buzzed in in the middle of one of Hawks' truths.
Hawks: I'm not going to say the joke afterwards, now. It was really good, too.
Wehn: I'm sorry; I've ruined it for everyone.
Apparently, in France, the penalty for adultery was once being forced to chase a chicken through the streets naked.
Mitchell: I'd be useless at chasing a chicken. It's why I don't go in for adultery.
Wehn and Hawks formed an alliance and kept telling each other what was going to be true. It began when Garden buzzed in on Hawks' speech because nobody had spotted anything yet, and 'there must be some truths in there'.
Hawks: They're all coming up. Here's one: [truth!]
(Wehn buzzes)
Wehn: Well, he said that it was true.
Mitchell: I think Tony was going for a double bluff there, but your literal German mind has allowed you to avoid that pitfall.
Later in Hawks' speech:
Wehn: Give us a clue, Tony.
In Wehn's following speech, Tony protested that Wehn wasn't returning his kindness.
Wehn: Don't worry; I'll pay you back. This is true. In the town--
(Smith buzzes)
Smith: I knew he wouldn't lie.
Mitchell: Yes, three words in you have correctly identified a true fact, thus making the game much more efficient in a very German way. I like it.
During Wehn's second lecture, he and Hawks started waving to each other and giving thumbs-up signs before a truth.
Mitchell: There's all sorts of sign language going on between Henning and Tony, and I'd feel more comfortable if I thought it was entirely sexual.
Much later, in response to the fact that someone had dressed as a tree to fish:
Smith: Henning looks a bit like a tree.
Wehn: Get your rod out.
Hawks: Henning! You're being unfaithful! How dare you?
Wehn at one point said 'May that as it be'. Mitchell couldn't quite keep himself from correcting him, in a rather selfconscious but insistent way, to 'Be that as it may'.
After Wehn's lecture on shoes, in which he used the phrase 'coming back to shoes' a couple of times as a lead-in after a challenge, the phrase 'coming back to shoes' was adopted as an all-purpose segue to get the game back on track, regardless of the subject under discussion.
The first line of Wehn's shoe lecture, incidentally:
Wehn: Shoes were invented by Jesus.
(pause, then massive laughter)
Mitchell: If nobody buzzes now, we're going to get letters.
Later:
Wehn: Apples were invented by Jesus.
Later still:
Smith: Lord Byron was invented by Jesus.
Smith's first lecture was on cakes. He claimed that a specific baker once baked a cake in the shape of Chairman Mao, and that three drunks then broke in and ate it. Wehn buzzed in.
Wehn: I think the first part, the part about baking a cake in the shape of Chairman Mao, I think that definitely could have happened.
Mitchell: And, if the claim had been that he could have baked a cake in the shape of Chairman Mao, you would have got a point.
Garden: What about the second part, about the drunks eating it?
Mitchell: Yes, they ate it; it just didn't exist.
Later:
Smith: In 2007, British cooks used 180 eggs, 120 jars of jam and 220 pounds of sugar to make a life-sized Skoda cake.
(Hawks buzzes for this)
Mitchell: It's not true. What is true, however, is that in 2007 British cooks used 180 eggs, 125 jars of jam... (in response to Hawks standing up and making to leave) Look, I don't like the way Arthur plays the game either.
Smith also said before his final line 'look, I'm going to say right now that this isn't true, so don't buzz and just let me really go for the punchline'.
Mitchell: And at the end of that, Arthur, you managed to smuggle two truths past the rest of the panel, and, in one of the most unsporting rounds to date, one of those was the one you explicitly said wasn't true beforehand.
Smith: (making 'raising' gesture) I'm taking the game to a different level.
Hawks: Don't gesture up!
A challenged claim about Caravaggio turned out to be untrue.
Smith: Yeah, but he was a hell of a dude, Caravaggio.
Mitchell: I don't mean in any way to insult Caravaggio, or to question his status as a hell of a dude.
Hearing David Mitchell say 'a hell of a dude' is an entirely delightful experience.
Hawks claimed that the story of Pinnochio was based on an ancient Babylonian tale in which telling lies made the penis grow larger. Smith buzzed in.
Smith: I know from personal experience...
Mitchell explained that it was false.
Mitchell: Which is just as well, because I don't want to imagine Jeffrey Archer with a giant hard-on.
Hawks: And yet you are.
Smith: What was it Shakespeare said? 'Give me a man with a large nose and I shall hold him in my heart as I do thee, Cassio.'
Mitchell: I don't think they had calculators back then, did they?
During Wehn's lecture on apples, Wehn having previously given Hawks a not-very-sneaky thumbs up:
Wehn: Vikings brought barrels of apples on long journeys.
Hawks: (buzzes) That's definitely true.
Mitchell: It is true!
Wehn: Vikings brought barrels of apples on long journeys.
Mitchell: You've said that already.
Wehn: I'm getting back into my flow!
Mitchell: You can't complain about the way the game is run when you keep giving Tony the answers.
Wehn: Vikings brought barrels of apples on long journeys.
(Garden buzzes in)
Garden: Repetition. (This will make sense to you only if you're familiar with Radio 4's Just a Minute; if you are not, I can assure you that this joke is hilarious.)
Mitchell: Erm...
Smith: Oh, there was a definite hesitation there.
Mitchell: Yes, I think I'm going to give Graeme a point there as a punishment to Henning for slow play.
Hawks: Please don't try to get back into your flow.
Wehn: But before long they would have eaten all the apples, and--
Mitchell: Who would? I don't understand.
Garden buzzed in on something that was true but not on the list of truths to be included. Mitchell argued that the speaker wasn't asserting it.
Garden: Hmmm.
Audience: Hmmm.
Mitchell: (looks slightly alarmed) ...I'd better leave quickly after this.
Smith claimed that Lord Byron once rode a zebra onto the floor of the House of Lords. Wehn buzzed in on this. It turned out to be untrue.
Smith: Zebras are weak; their ankles snap the moment you mount them. That's the extent of my zebra-related knowledge.
Mitchell: It's greater than mine. I'd never have looked at a zebra and thought 'that is a weak-ankled animal'.
Smith: Well, you should get out more.
Mitchell: ...I probably should.
(Garden buzzes)
(Garden claims that Chris Tarrant is allergic to fish. Wehn buzzes in and insists that Tarrant gives off the air of being someone who won't touch fish. As it turns out, Tarrant is a keen fisher.)
Wehn: That's so weird, because every time I see him I think 'that's a man who won't go near fish'.
Mitchell: I know, it's impossible to imagine, isn't it?
Wehn: Plus there's the 'I Don't Eat Fish' T-shirt.
Smith: What was this thing you saw Chris Tarrant in?
Wehn: It was a personal video. You were in it, Arthur.
Mitchell: Well, what you have to remember is that, in these porn films that Chris Tarrant makes, he's acting. The character he plays doesn't like fish. Of course, Chris Tarrant is such a talented porn actor that it can be difficult to distinguish his role from the reality.
Smith: I was his fluffer.
Garden: What was he like to work with?
Smith: He didn't like fish.
Mitchell was unable to finish one of his post-game facts because members of the panel kept buzzing in in the middle and saying 'I THINK THAT'S TRUE'. The producer made him redo it at the end; Mitchell, wary, asked the panel to disconnect their buzzers and then cracked up three words in.
Mitchell: In Oblong, Illinois, it's illegal to make love whilst fishing on your wedding night, presumably to keep your hook from getting caught in your tackle. Which would ruin your fishing.
(beat)
Because of the pain in your penis.
Which brings us to the final scores!
Smith: (snorts) ...mneh mneh penis. Which brings us to the final scores!
Mitchell: And, on a non-sequitorial note, here are the scores. That joke concluded, here are the scores.
Finally, an out-of-context quote from the queue, just because:
valderys: I think David Mitchell's penis, metal or not, would presumably be classy.Yes.
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This is the second time I've seen Hawks and Smith at an Unbelievable Truth recording together, and I have to say that I enjoy both of them as panellists very much.
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Mitchell: In Oblong, Illinois, it's illegal to make love whilst fishing on your wedding night, presumably to keep your hook from getting caught in your tackle. Which would ruin your fishing.
(beat)
Because of the pain in your penis.
This is the section I was talking to Chris about when I was blah blah blah comedy theory OH MY GOD WHY AM I SUCH AN ARSE. :D
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I enjoyed your comedy theory ramblings! If you are an arse, you are an interesting arse.
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(... and after commenting on this, I realise that my reply makes very little sense. Oh well.)
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BRITAIN! *clings*
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Oh my god I can't wait for this to air.
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GIP
Re: GIP
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I don't know anything about Just a Minute, but it made me laugh anyway, because it reminded me of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern playing Questions in Rozencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (for those who haven't seen it, Questions is like a cross between a conversation and a tennis match).
[info]valderys: I think David Mitchell's penis, metal or not, would presumably be classy.
It is now part of my personal canon that David Mitchell has a metal penis. But a classy one. (Oh god, I'm so going to end up joining the fandom now that you've moved on to Glee, aren't I?)
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I'm just going to ignore everything in this sentence after that bit, okay?
I wish I could get the Mentalist. Mostly for the needlessly elaborate Psych crossover serial killers extravaganza, which would combine my loves of dark creepiness and affectionate mocking in fiction, but also because it sounds interesting.